Vietnamese Woman Brave In New World

MELBOURNE — Le Tuyen Ven has survived torture for her religious beliefs, life as a Vietnamese refugee and most recently a divorce, but she remains undaunted.

Ven still has her four children, her music and her God, so she also has peace.

Thirteen months ago, Ven arrived in Melbourne after a 12-year struggle to leave her native South Vietnam. From the time her American husband, Clarence Stanford, was forced to leave Saigon in 1973 after he lost his job as a communications engineer, Ven dreamed of the day when she and their children would join him in the United States.

But when that time finally came, a dozen years of red tape later, Stanford, 73, had grown accustomed to life alone. Ven, 36, and the children also had learned to live without him. The couple's uncontested divorce was finalized last month in Brevard County Court.

''In one way, I wish I had not come here so I would have only good memories of my husband,'' Ven said. ''He liked to live free and have no responsibilities. Men are funny; in my country men think women are the slaves of their husbands.

''My husband and I must part because I wanted the children to still think good of their father,'' she said. ''The children say, 'If he does not care for us, we'll care for ourselves.' ''

Stanford sees it differently: ''She wants to still stay friends, but I don't know. It's all different than I expected.''

Ven supports the children on the $516 a month they get from Stanford's Social Security benefits and the kids help out by doing yard work on the weekends. Tom, 18, attends Eau Gallie High School; Jon, 14, and daughter Bach, 16, go to Johnson Junior High; and daughter Binh, 9, attends Creel Elementary. When they arrived here, none of the children spoke English. After a year in school, however, they are more fluent than their mother.

''Now the children correct my English and say, 'Mom, you pronounce that wrong,' '' Ven said.

Although Florida has not been the trouble-free place she envisioned, Ven is glad to be here. ''A lot of people have helped me a lot here and continue to help me,'' she said.

If she had stayed in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, she would have had to withstand more abuse for having Amer-Asian children. They could not have been educated because they were barred from school because of their heritage. And the family could not freely practice its religion. Ven already had been imprisoned by the Vietnamese Communists for two years for the crime of playing the piano in a church run by a political Catholic priest.

The chains that bound her feet in prison left wounds that have not healed. Ven carries these painful reminders with her.

''The Communists tied me in chains, took my clothes and gave me only water,'' she said. What little food she did receive was thrown on the floor of her cell. She was forced to roll on the ground to eat because her feet and hands were bound, Ven said.

''They say, 'We revenge you. You are like a dog now,' '' she remembered her captors saying.

''Every time I eat good food now I cry for my people in prison,'' Ven said. ''If I had no children, I would go back and join the revolution against the Communists. But because of the children, I will stay here and write music to push people to love this country.

''Most people couldn't believe my true story, but it happened, it happened.''

After her release from prison, Ven managed to get together almost $5,000 and paid Vietnamese officials to allow her and the children to leave the country. They arrived in Melbourne in September 1985, much to Stanford's surprise. His only notification of their pending arrival came 10 days before they touched down on American soil. The family slept on the floor of an office the first few nights they were in Melbourne until other arrangements could be made.

Now Ven and the children live in a tiny two-room home in Melbourne that friends from Ascension Catholic Church helped them find. A painting of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus hangs over Ven's most prized possession, an old upright piano, in the room that serves as a living room, dining room and kitchen. A picture of Beethoven, a guitar, a tambourine and the xylophone that son Tom plays in the Eau Gallie High School Band are close by, reflecting the family's love of music.

Ven, a graduate of the International School of Music in Saigon, taught music 11 hours a day to 200 Vietnamese students who called her Linh Phrong, which means ''one way of heart.'' She is an accomplished pianist and has written reams of music, some of which she was able to bring with her.

A piece of sheet music on her piano is called ''The Dance of Vietnam.'' Ven composed it in her mind in prison and wrote it down when she was released.

She said she called it a dance because life in Vietnam is like a dance in that every movement must be thought out.

''And I named it a happy name so officials would not take it away, but when I play it, people can imagine,'' she said. ''All my songs from Vietnam are very sad.''